Step 1: Find the file you want to share
Share a single file
- On a computer, go to Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, or Slides.
- Click the file you want to share.
- Click Share or Share
.
Share multiple files
- On a computer, go to drive.google.com.
- On your keyboard, hold Shift and select two or more files.
- At the top right, click Share .
Step 2: Choose who to share with & how they can use your file
Share with specific people
If you use a Google Account through work or school, you might not be able to share files outside of your organization.
- Select the file you want to share.
- Click Share or Share .
- Under "Share with people and groups," enter the email address you want to share with.
- To change what people can do to your doc, on the right, click the Down arrow
Viewer, Commenter, or Editor.
- Choose to notify people.
- If you want to notify people that you shared a doc with them, check the box next to Notify people. If you notify people, each email address you enter will be included in the email.
- If you don't want to notify people, uncheck the box.
Share a link to the file
You can send other people a link to your file so anyone with the link can use it. When you share a link to a file, your name and your email will be visible as the owner of the file.
- Select the file you want to share.
- Click Share or Share Get link.
- Under “Get Link”, click the Down arrow .
- Choose who to share the file with.
Tip: If you use your Google account for work or school, you can choose to only share files and folders with a specific audience, like your department. You might see a description of each audience when you hover over the the group name.
- To decide what people can do with your file when you share it, select Viewer, Commenter, or Editor.
- Click Copy link Done.
- Copy and paste the link in an email or any place you want to share it.
Share & collaborate on a file with many people
At any time, a Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides file can only be edited on up to 100 open tabs or devices. If there are more than 100 instances of the file open, only the owner and some users with editing permissions can edit the file.
To share and collaborate on a file with a very wide audience:
Publish the file
- If you need many people to view a file at once, publish it and create a link to share to viewers. You can give edit access to people who need to edit or comment on the file. Learn how to publish a file.
- Depending on your account’s settings, publishing a file makes it visible to everyone on the web, everyone in your organization, or a group of people in your organization. Be careful when publishing private or sensitive info.
- To remove a file from the web, you must stop publishing it. Learn how to stop publishing a file.
- To stop sharing a file with collaborators, learn how to change sharing permissions.
Create a Google Site
Collect feedback with Google Forms
- If you need to gather a lot of information, create a Google Form. Responses will be recorded in a Google Sheet. Give edit access only to people who need to work with the responses. To let more than 100 people view the responses, publish the spreadsheet to the web and create a link to share with viewers. Learn how to publish a file.
Fix problems with documents shared with many people
If your document is shared with many people and it’s crashing or not updating quickly, try these troubleshooting tips:
- Instead of allowing people to comment on a document or spreadsheet, create a Google Form to collect feedback. Learn how to create a Google Form.
- If you’re making a copy of a document, don’t include resolved comments and suggestions. Learn how to make a copy.
- Delete older information or move data into a new document.
- Ask viewers to close the document when they aren’t using it.
- Include only the most important information in a published document. Shorter documents load faster.
- Reduce the amount of people with edit access to a document.
- If collecting information from multiple documents, create a new, view-only document to share with a large number of people.